Tucker Carlson does it again!

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2023

Troubled youngster allowed to unload on "low-IQ plastic surgery disaster:" The New York Times put it on today's front page—on the front page of today's Business Day section.

Assuming the Times reporting is fully accurate, it might have belonged on page A1—on the front page of the whole newspaper. 

We refer to this report about the way major figures within Fox News privately mocked the Trump campaign's claims of election fraud in the first few weeks after the November 2020 election. Headline included, the report begins like this:

Fox Stars Privately Expressed Disbelief About Election Fraud Claims. ‘Crazy Stuff.’

Newly disclosed messages and testimony from some of the biggest stars and most senior executives at Fox News revealed that they privately expressed disbelief about President Donald J. Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him, even though the network continued to promote many of those lies on the air.

The hosts Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham, as well as others at the company, repeatedly insulted and mocked Trump advisers, including Sidney Powell and Rudolph W. Giuliani, in text messages with each other in the weeks after the election, according to a legal filing on Thursday by Dominion Voting Systems. Dominion is suing Fox for defamation...

“Sidney Powell is lying by the way. I caught her. It’s insane,” Mr. Carlson wrote to Ms. Ingraham on Nov. 18, 2020.

Ms. Ingraham responded: “Sidney is a complete nut. No one will work with her. Ditto with Rudy.”

Mr. Carlson continued, “Our viewers are good people and they believe it,” he added, making clear that he did not.

The messages also show that such doubts extended to the highest levels of the Fox Corporation, with Rupert Murdoch, its chairman, calling Mr. Trump’s voter fraud claims “really crazy stuff.”

The major players at Fox News thought the claims of election fraud were crazy! Even so, "the network continued to promote many of those lies on the air," the New York Times reports.

As the Times notes, its news report is based upon "a legal filing on Thursday by Dominion Voting Systems." You can examine that legal filing here, although it's fairly heavily redacted, producing occasional uncertainty about the context in which certain statements were made.

In its report, the Times quotes a statement by Fox which says that Dominion has "mischarcaterized the record." The Times proceeds to offer this account of an incident which occurred shortly after the 2020 election:

PETERS AND ROBERTSON: The brief shows that Fox News stars and executives were afraid of losing their audience, which started to defect to the conservative cable news alternatives Newsmax and OAN after Fox News called Arizona for Mr. Biden. And they seemed concerned with the impact that would have on the network’s profitability.

On Nov. 12, in a text chain with Ms. Ingraham and Mr. Hannity, Mr. Carlson pointed to a tweet in which a Fox reporter, Jacqui Heinrich, fact-checked a tweet from Mr. Trump referring to Fox broadcasts and said there was no evidence of voter fraud from Dominion.

“Please get her fired,” Mr. Carlson said. He added: “It needs to stop immediately, like tonight. It’s measurably hurting the company. The stock price is down. Not a joke.” Ms. Heinrich had deleted her tweet by the next morning.

Please note: this incident occurred six days before the incident in which Carlson told his colleagues that he had caught Sidney Powell lying. In our view, the Times could have done a better job making the chronology of this unfolding story clear.

That said, the Times report—and the legal filing from which it is drawn—tells a remarkable story about the internal communications within a major "news channel." The major primetime stars are involved, but so is almost everyone else, right up through Rupert Murdoch. 

The Times report may have belonged right on page A1. Then too, there's the rather typical doses of The Crazy which Tucker Carlson was offering viewers during last night's hourlong show.

As we've noted, the "excitable boy" has shed all pretense of journalistic regularity over the past few months. Consider one unhinged presentation we stumbled upon last night.

During his opening monologue, Carlson was complaining about the effort by some Democratic officials to regulate guns more effectively. With all attempts at journalistic regularity dead and gone, here's part of what Carlson said:

CARLSON (2/16/23): The people in charge are stupid, obviously, but they're not so dim they don't understand the consequences of serially mistreating the country over a period of many years. They're starting to get worried.  They are afraid of the people they govern. 

How do we know that? Because they're moving at high speed to disarm the people they govern.  Here's plastic surgery model Gavin Newsome of California last month.

At this point, Carlson played videotape of Newsom saying that sending "thoughts and prayers" in the wake of a mass shooting simply isn't enough. 

You can see the full segment here, including Newsom's statement. A full transcript of the segment is provided. Carlson continued as shown:

CARLSON (continuing directly): "Prayer? How stupid is prayer?" says Gavin Newsom. "People who pray are idiots. I'm the only God here. Bow down before me. You can no longer defend yourselves. Only I have the right to defend your life." 

Now think about that for a minute. It's not a reassuring message, really. Anyone who strips you of your basic God-given right to self-defense is probably not your friend, and anyone who does it in a moment of chaos like the ones we're living through, chaos that people like Gavin Newsom caused on purpose, anyone who does that is probably your blood enemy.

According to Carlson, the "plastic surgery model" had caused the current chaos on purpose. He was telling Californians that he himself is the only God, and that people who pray are idiots.

That makes Newsom the blood enemy of Carlson's millions of viewers. Carlon continued as shown: 

CARLSON (continuing directly): But Gavin Newsom is not alone. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan has the very same message: Stop praying and obey. 

Carlson now played videotape of Whitmer saying that "thoughts and prayers" aren't a sufficient response to our ongoing waves of mass shootings. After he had played the tape, Carlson offered this:

CARLSON: Another low-IQ plastic surgery disaster lecturing us about things she has no understanding of. So laugh at Gretchen Whitmer if you will, but then think about what she's saying. She's mocking prayer. 

Really? Well, now that you mention it, Gretchen Whitmer, we might use a little prayer right now. Prayers work better than equity. Prayers are safer than Norfolk Southern. Prayers are more comforting than Kamala Harris's laugh. 

There's nothing wrong with prayers.  What we don't need any more of is more totalitarian atheists with ill-gotten political power and designs on our lives. We've got enough of those, including you.

Newsom was a plastic surgery model, but Whitmer is a plastic surgery disaster. Also, Whitmer is a low-IQ plastic surgery disaster. 

As a special bonus, a jibe at Kamala Harris was included. There's little point in failing to note this fellow's undisguised resentment of, and anger at, the people he thinks of as women.

According to Carlson, Whitmer and Newsom are totalitarian atheists. They have designs on his viewers' lives, and they've been mocking prayer.

Carlson has abandoned all pretense of journalistic or human normalcy on his nightly program. Our nation is sliding toward the sea, and Fox News is letting its "excitable boy" push the nation from behind pretty much as hard as he can.

Rupert Murdoch is letting this happen. What do you think the network's texts may be saying today?